Choosing to Live: Michael Allison on Facing the Past and Embracing the Future

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After surviving combat, trauma, and years of silence, Michael reached a breaking point, contemplating standing on a bridge, ready to let go. But a memory, triggered by a letter,  pulled him back. In this conversation, he shares how that moment became the start of everything new and how choosing to stay opened the door to a life filled with purpose. Right before that, I wrote the letter of how  my life has been, what's been going on.

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and no point of being here. And this is when  my life shifted. The letter that I wrote my mom talked about what I was going through in boot camp.  And the memory of what she wrote me back instantly kicked in. Instantly when I was writing this letter and reading that letter and looking at that letter, instantly that moment kicked back in for me. And it was one of the most sobering moments in my life. I'm somebody of faith and belief and...

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it just started resonating as in like, is not how your life is supposed to end. This is not how it's going to go. In addition to that, something came over me, man, overwhelming, just came over me. Like, how dare you try to take your life? I'm Maciel Huli, and this is The Life Shift.  Candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever.

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Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Life Shift podcast. am here with Michael. Hello, Michael. Hey, man. How you doing, man? Thank you for having me. Well, thank you. I was saying how beautiful this journey has been  with the Life Shift podcast. And so here I am almost 200 episodes into this podcast, talking to people about the many different life shifts in their lives and how we, if we're lucky enough, we can reflect on these moments and we can see what has changed about us. We can have

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Other people hear our stories and feel less alone.  And so it's just been so  such a blessing that I never could have even imagined for myself.  So thank you for  wanting to be a part of my healing journey through having this conversation here. It's  it's truly going to make an impact to people as you're breaking the ball as what I kind of call it as I know it's making an impact, man. That's the journey that I've been on to share my life story and to know that it's making an impact to people.

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I truly relate with that, man. Thank you. Before we get into that, maybe you can tell us the 2025 version. Who are you? How do you show up in the world these days? Yeah, so I'm Michael Allison, founder and CEO of the Adversity Academy. And I get the opportunity to be a keynote speaker, to be an author, and most importantly, to be an absolutely great dad and a wonderful husband to my wife and to my family that actually supports me in everything that I do.

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and allows me to be a keynote speaker and allows me to be an author and allows me to spend my time and  and also the blessings that has been given to me to share my story with people throughout this world. Yeah, I mean, I think sometimes we forget all the people around us, like lifting us up when times get hard or I think the things that you're doing to like they're not the traditional route. Like I think a lot of people are like, oh, like that seems like like a fantasy.

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but you're making it happen. I think a lot of people are like, I'd love to do that, but how do I do it? And you've made it work for yourself. So kudos to you in 2025. Thank  you, thank you. So maybe you can paint the picture of your life leading up to  what you think is maybe the most pivotal of the life shift moments. I'm sure you've had many along the way. So paint the picture, go back as far as you need to to kind of tell us who Michael was in the before times. Absolutely. So interesting.

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me is I mentioned to you that I was an introvert and I was someone that truly internalized most of my life as I grew up a very private person.  And for me to actually get on stage nowadays  and be a keynote speaker, tell my life story  and write a book and tell my life story  and get on podcasts and things like that, would have never in a million years fathomed or thought that I would be doing something like that. But it's interesting how  life

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gives you different things and it allows you to unpack them in different ways. But at every single incremental moment, sometimes you'll question some things  and realize  at the end of the day, this is why this happened to me. And along those journey as I was learning, I realized that there was a growth when I take a look back at it now. When you're in it and when you're going through it, you actually don't realize what you're going through and you could actually.

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fall into the victim blaming or all of these different things that we could identify, put an identity to as their circumstances we're going through. So with that being said, man, I grew up a kid born in Jamaica. I was born in Jamaica. was a chubby kid. love to eat. I love to play around. Love to goof off as a normal kid would. And I had a normal pretty cool life. But unfortunately, man, right around four or five years old, if you know anything about Jamaica, it's the Caribbean's one of the poorest countries when it comes to

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the economical statures. We're going through a flood and as it's raining and it's raining and it's raining, I wake up in the middle of the night and all of a sudden I see water inside of our living room and toys are just like floating around inside the house. Toys are floating around inside of our bedroom. And then mom and dad grabs us and they sit us on top of the roof in the middle of the rain just so we don't drown. And to be quite honest with you, man, we couldn't swim. So.

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It was a horrible time for us. It left us homeless temporarily. But what that taught me was how resilient my mom and dad was.  And when I think about that, you know, back in those times, you know, back in 1980s, they didn't have things where you could like protect your Google document, your documents in Google or your certificates. So when you think about this, man, my mom and dad was a postal clerk and a taxi driver, and they worked so hard for so many things.

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and they lost majority of their things instantly in that moment as they could not preserve it, put it anywhere.  And while we're temporary to homeless, they were trying to figure things out. I just saw how resilient they were and how they chose to not give up, not quit and continue to push it. So from afar as a kid, I was observing this and seeing how they handle tough times and tough situation and how they became much more resilient. Unfortunately, two years after that, we have Hurricane Gilbert.

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And Hurricane Gilbert is a category five hurricane and killed over 300 people. And our new house, it blew off the roof and ripped through this house again. But then this moment, this is when mom and dad decided that it was time to make a change. And when they decided to make a change, they made some sacrifices with that. So they left me, my brother, my sisters, and we stayed with our grandparents in Jamaica, but they went off to New York to work some odd end jobs, just to make some money and try to figure things out.

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Eventually, they got enough money and they sent for us to move to the United States. When they did, they stayed in New York, but we had family members that lived in Miami, Florida. So we went to Miami, Florida to live.  And when we got there, my uncle picked us up in one of those old school station wagon that has like the wood grain on the side. And they picked us up. We kind of see in his face that he was either like stressed out or I'm about to have a lot of kids in these house.  I have all these bills that I got to pay.  And when I got there, what we

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was brought into was a household of him, his wife, his mom. In addition to that, they already had four kids and they just took on three kids. And now they had us living in one bedroom while they're in the other bedrooms.  And some of us are on the floor. Some of us are on bunk beds.  And Matt, I'll be honest with you, man, that first night that I got there, I'm thinking, what is this that I just got into? My whole world just shifted. My whole world just changed.

08:04
And on top of that, my 13 year old female cousin gets on top of me as a seven year old boy as he's trying to have sex with me.  And as a kid, you're there as a stranger in somebody else's house and you're trying to like figure out what's going on and you don't have your mom or dad  and you're a guest in somebody's house. How do you deal with this? How do you go through this and manage this? And unfortunately,

08:30
It was a very tough time for me as a kid as I was trying to like figure those things out. I will say shortly after that, my mom and dad did come to America, down to Miami, Florida and picked us up. And then we found a new place where we could started living. As we continue to move around, I just started realizing that I really didn't fit in. I didn't speak American English very well. And at the same time, kids were starting bullying me. They started looking at how we dress because we didn't wear a name brand. So we were shopping in Payless.

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We're shopping in McCorys. It was just shopping in the flea market and getting hand-me-downs. And that came with lots of adversity and came with lots of fights  as you're the outsider and you don't fit in. So  you're navigating that and trying to deal with some of those tremendous things.  And it was very hard, very tough for us. But at the same time, I still always like kept the mindset of looking at what my mom and dad did. My dad was working three jobs at the time when he came to Miami.

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He was getting up at five o'clock in the morning and he was picking limes in the field. Right after that, then he was going to become an electrician at his second job. And his third job, he was working as security guard at nighttime. So I didn't see my dad throughout the daytime. And then my mom, she was also being a nanny. So she was going on the South Beach, taking care of other people's kids while her kids was trying to go to school and trying to figure things out. No fault of their own, but.

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as immigrants, you're trying to hustle, you're trying to bustle, you're trying to figure things out, you're trying to get after it. Yeah, you're not getting a leg up. Nobody's no handouts. Did you did you feel like because that whole story of, you know, losing your house, then losing your house again, then losing your parents, essentially for a little bit going to New York when you're when you're left behind, then you're moving somewhere else or you're essentially being assaulted. Did you have this?

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this sense of like you weren't safe anywhere. Was there any of that play into it? Because I feel like for me, it would feel so hectic in my mind because everywhere I went, it wasn't safe in some way, in some different way. Did you have any of those feelings? Totally. It felt like that because when you have that security blanket as your mom, you have your dad, you have your grandparents, and now you're a stranger in someone's house, you can't run to them and be like,

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Hey, this is what happened to me. Hey, your daughter did this to me.  And it was a very scary time because he didn't know who he could trust. He didn't know who he could rely on. I didn't even know how to make a phone call or call anybody. didn't But even if you told someone, where would you go? feels like you didn't. It's it's scary. I mean, you were seven. So would they  I would assume  as a seven year old thinking that someone's going to kick me out. like  if I tell anyone I'm going to get in trouble and I'm not going to have a place to sleep or I'm not going to have a place.

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anything to eat or all those things. so  you're a thousand percent. That's exactly how it felt. I didn't feel that I could go to my aunt or uncle and say, hey, your daughter did this to me. As in, we're the guests, we're the strangers in your house. We're the outsiders in your house. What could potentially happen? My mom and dad is not here. So those are some of the things that play inside of your head. And you start believing some of these things that you're selling yourself to as well. Yeah. But then all along, you still had

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this memory of your parents and their resilience, too. I feel like I would have been so immature that I wouldn't have been able to recognize that  at such a young age. Because, mean,  if  this is not even anywhere remotely close, but like after I lost my my mom and my dad took over the parental duties because I lived with my mom full time. So then all of sudden I was in a new space, kind of like in your situation, like everything feels weird. I was afraid he was going to leave me. So I had to be perfect.

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So I had to start getting all A pluses. I had to start  doing everything that I thought he wanted me to do in order for me to not be abandoned again.  And so some of those feelings,  I think of that eight-year-old version of me, and I was like, I felt safe, luckily, but I also had this inkling of if I wasn't this perfect son,  I might not be safe. So some of my thoughts go to you, but  totally different circumstance. But I can imagine as a

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seven-year-old, like I can't imagine  me thinking, oh, wow, my dad was so resilient,  like at the time. So good on you for like holding those memories because I'm sure they planted deep for you to be able to do that. They did.  It's  interesting too, as  I'm thinking about it here is throughout that entire process, you know, when you get to that state of  loneliness or trying to figure things out, you fall into isolation.

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and you're trying to navigate that  and who is it that I could rely on? Those were the memories that I could rely on as just, they're tough, be tough, be resilient, push through these things.  They got through things that you could get through this, these types of things. If they could do it, I could do it. So that's the kind of mindset that I started creating at a very young age. In addition to that, what it taught me was it could be a pro and a con, but

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When you see people push through things and don't really address things and deal with things, it allows you to compartmentalize things. And that's exactly what it started doing for me. So this happened to me. I  don't know how to deal with it or face it. So I'm just going to put this in a bottle. I'm just going to put this on a shelf.  And maybe I'll never deal with it or I'll never face it again in my life and just keep on moving forward. That's the lie we tell ourselves. Exactly. Yeah. It'll never come back. We'll just push it down.  Exactly.

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But it's so common. I think we're trained, especially in that time period. It sounds like we're about the same age. I think that time period, there were only certain emotions you were allowed to have as a boy. Exactly. As a boy, especially for me. So growing up in Jamaica, you're taught to be very tough, to be very macho. You are taught to have that mindset or that lifestyle of...

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I'm just kind of like being a tough guy,  so to speak. And Jamaica is kind of like what that is as a man. So you don't  cower to things. You don't cry about things. You don't share your emotions. You don't share your feelings, those types of things. And if you did,  you would be looked at in a certain type of way, as in soft or whatever nicknames  anybody else could attribute to that type of scenario that's taking place as well. Yeah. And then you come to America.

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you're an immigrant child, so you have a bunch of jerk little kids around you too,  right? Like playing that so  you can't even emote there because you need to feel safe enough that you have to like, quote unquote, man up as a little kid. Yeah, right. So there's nowhere to turn. And that's what I meant by you go into isolation. Let's say at that particular time, seven-year-old boy, you have kids that you're playing football with.

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You're probably playing Sega Genesis or Atari, one of those types of things at that time. So you have people that you hang out with and play with. We didn't have those things, you know. So it's just us inside that house, us inside with that family  and. Walking on eggshells, where you was it was every situation in that house after that first night, very  tense for you because you knew you were holding something back. Most definitely.  It was kind of like that because.

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You didn't know when the next outburst or situation was going to take place. So it was kind of like a kid praying, like, when is mom and dad coming? When is mom and dad coming? When am I going to get out of this circumstance? When am I going to get out of this situation? And they came, what you said, like how long after you got there did they come? after that, they came about a year later. It was a long time, but shortly after that they came. And when they did come, you know, they're

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Obviously, they came to America, they've already figured some things out, but now they had to get adjusted to what it's like to live in Miami. So you're watching your parents work  a million hours a day, and they're kind of trying to create a life for you now? Is this like, are you guys in your own space where you're creating this family life? And do things change for you  in that newer space, or do things compound? I wish I could tell you that it did. As a kid, that's trying to figure things out.

16:52
I want to be a part of something. I want to feel a part of something. And I asked my mom, hey, can I join the Boy Scouts? They came to school. They gave a presentation.  They tell us about all of the camaraderie, all of the cool things that they do, the trips that they're taking. Can I be a part of this?  And I said, this is something for me where I could learn, I could grow, I could develop, become in much more of a bigger boy at that particular time. I was 11 years old. And mom and dad said, yes. So they allowed me to join.  And I did it.

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And we first started off doing a couple of different trips, learning how to tie different knots, fires, camping, you name it, fishing, all those cool things. We did all those things. And then we have a trip coming up in the summer to go to Washington, DC, see all of the monuments, go to the White House, ask my mom and dad, hey, can I go? They said yes. We catch an Amtrak, we go to DC. We're there having a great time. And it's 12 of us, 12 boys with our Scout Masters and some of the assistants. Matt.

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We come back on the last day to our hotel room. Half of the boys are split up in the rooms. Everyone takes a shower. I go in and I take a shower. I come out of the shower and I find five of the boys  on the wall naked. I was told to get on that wall too as well. And man, I experienced something that no kid should ever experience  at 11 years old from one of the assistant scout masters that was there.

18:16
That rocked me again, man. Put me back into that same mindset, in that same mind space of someone abusing you, someone taking advantage of you, someone making you feel small, someone treating you like crap, a view of no value, you're not worthy, or any of those things. not safe. You're not safe again. These people that I trusted, my mom and dad trusted, just took advantage of us. We're back into the same scenario again. And the interesting part about this is during these particular times as kids,

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The way we handled things at that time was  an  ingrained memory of like, this is how you potentially could handle all situations. As you don't say anything, you don't talk about it.  And that's one of those repeated things that was occurring for me. I come home and I share with my mom what the trip was like. And then she takes my shirt off and she sees like  black and blue bruises all over my body as we was getting punched at the same time too.  And we're immigrants.

19:14
We're on visas. don't have, we're not natural United States citizens. We're not financially well off. Do we want to cause a problem?  We can't afford lawyers. Do we go to the government? We can't do any of those things. We lost. So  what do we do? My mom and dad decided to take me out of the Boy Scouts, never talk about it again, never address it. And we just went on about life. Yeah. And then you're taught kind of like, can't, like it feels like you're

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Not that you're taught on purpose, but it's the victim of circumstances in which the safety wasn't there for you to feel safe enough to bring it up with anyone. And you were forced to  now add another thing behind the wall, you know,  to your life, which I mean, I'm sorry that you had to go through that. can't imagine one of those circumstances, let alone multiple of them. But then always seeing

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that people that are supposed to keep you safe, leaders in different groups, whatever it may be, you can't even trust them. And then  I hate to ask this, but did you harbor any kind of feelings in the sense of where your parents weren't able to do anything about that? No, I didn't. I didn't harbor anything against my parents at the time.  I grew up in a household where my mom and dad

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truly truly love me  and we're doing their best as you could see it with your own eyes that they're trying to like really do their best for their kids. It's some of these horrible circumstances and  throughout life I've learned that people are unpredictable, circumstances could be unpredictable and you never know. People will come at you with the best entrance but in their heart there's something that's evil on the inside that you'll never know  or you'll never find out until it's too late sometimes.

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I mean, but by 11, you're just taught that the world is just garbage. Did you have,  did you have like happy feelings for  the world or did you just feel like everything was out to get you?  It's interesting that you asked me that question. So shortly after that, I started realizing what my true talent was  or natural talent was or natural gift was, and it was art. So I got into drawing, I got into painting.

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And I realized, so these are some of the things that I look back at what I was doing, but never really gave a true thought. But I realized what I was drawing. I realized what I was painting. And I was drawing and painting very dark things. I was drawing and painting very mean things at the time. Even if it was characters from cartoons, I was drawing them and creating them doing very dark or mean things at the time. So that's how I started expressing that.

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I actually got pretty good at drawing and painting because I was doing it so much. So I got a chance and got accepted to go to art school.  And I got around a bunch of people that was kind of like me and kind of like found myself in a group of kids that could draw, kids that could paint.  And then I started opening up a little bit more as in like, I'm in a group, I'm in a community, I'm around people that actually is supporting me, people that is actually loving me, people that is there for me and that is cheering me on to as well. No, I mean, I think

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finding community is helpful. Does it solve any of the problems or does it just help the current situation? I would say it was kind of like a band-aid at the time and I found it ties into the co-part mentalizing of things. And I found before I got to a good counselor that actually helped me break through some of the things that I was keeping on the inside as when I was about 31, 32 years old, that helped me like truly.

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unpack some of these things that I've never spoken about or talked about. Some of the things that occurred to me as a kid, as a child, I never really spoke to my mom and dad about those things, shared any of those things with them, never talked to my siblings about those things. And I just kept those things on the inside. Some of those things that is in my first book, my mom and dad, they were surprised how I was feeling, how I was dealing with it. They occurred, but no one ever really asked me, how were you really feeling? How are you dealing with it?

23:31
How were you sleeping at night? What were your nightmares? What were your dreams about? What were you thinking about? Nobody's ever asked me any of those things that I was processing those things. I think that happens when you, when it's kind of like you brush it under the rug and nobody talks about it because they're uncomfortable talking about it as well. And so then everyone just pretends  that it didn't happen except for the person that dealt with it, right? And then it eventually bubbles up into a space where it's untenable and something that is probably

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something you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy, right? Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Where did that like, I mean, I hate to ask, like, what comes next, but like, I don't even think this is your life shift, like this most pivotal moment, right? Like these are all like tragic events that nobody should experience one of them. You're so right, man. I never  knew  that what I'm going through in life was setting me up for like

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bigger adversities to face to actually deal with it and go through things. Shortly after that, Matt, I joined my football team and I'm playing football  and I'm thinking I'm going to go play in the NFL. I'm going to go to college. Got an opportunity to get  an offer from University of Wisconsin.  my ACL, tier my MCL, game five, senior year. Scholarship get taken away.

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And  we go back to some of the same practices. We're not that well versed in scholarships, grants, applications to get money to go to college. So  me thinking of how I thought as a kid was, I don't want to be a burden to my family. I don't want to put my family in debt. What are some of the other options that I could think about to not be that for my family?

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I was there coming out of the child hall after I got the news that I'm not going to go to college anymore. And I had one of these sad puppy dog looks on my face.  And there I saw Staff Sergeant Noda. Staff Sergeant Noda looks at me and says, hey, come here, man. Let me talk to you for a minute. And he was like, what's going on? You look like you bummed out.  And we started talking. He started telling me about the United States Marine Corps, telling me all of the great things that you could do, things that you could accomplish being a part of a team,  all of the camaraderie, you get a chance to see the world.

25:49
And we're going to give you a GI bill so you can actually go to college and actually do some great things for yourself. Go home, tell mom and dad about it. Mom and dad was like, hell no, you ain't joining the military.  Their worst thought was that I'm to go to war. During that time, the previous war that we saw was Desert Storm. So  they knew what that looked like.  And I imagine for them what they  saw in regards to the military and war that they could have even seen on TV. They were born in the 50s.

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So throughout that time, they knew what it was like for soldiers and how their experiences were coming back with shell shock, which is PTSD now. And I just imagined that's what some of the things that was going through their mind. This is my son and we don't want him to die. I went back to the staff sergeant and told him that, and he let me talk to your parents. He talked to my mom and dad. He convinced them and mom and dad said yes. And from there, man, my life changed.

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in regards to the trajectory of getting out of my environment, getting out of my community  and pushing myself through boot camp, which was one of the hardest things I actually ever done in my life for three months. Someone is yelling at you, someone is screaming at you, someone is telling you what to do when I wake up, when to sleep. Even if you did something right, you did it wrong.

27:09
I went through that entire process, man, and it was one of the hardest things that I've ever been through, but one of the most rewarding things I could say that I've accomplished in my life at that particular time. Yeah, I'm curious too of like that regimented schedule and knowing exactly what  is expected of you, if that was like a reprieve at all from your previous life or the life leading up to that, where it was like you knew what was coming at you, essentially. You knew you were going to get tortured for three months.

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in boot camp. So he told me all of the good things that would happen. He didn't tell me what boot camp was really, really, really like.  And the first three months, I'll be honest with you, I thought, what the hell did I really sign up for? Staff started to that didn't tell me any of this. They made you feel like you're the lowest of the lowest scum of the scum beneath the earth type of person.  And I realized that this is something that they're doing to truly break you down.

28:07
and kind of like test you and see what you're made of and see what your character is all about.  And I felt I actually cowered to that. I wrote a letter to my mom the first month that I'm in and I'm telling her how horrible this is, how bad this is. I made a bad decision. And she writes me a letter back  and in that letter, it really changes my perspective. He says, you know, your grandfather came from Cuba on a boat and he made it to Jamaica to create the life that we had.

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in Jamaica to live. Your mom and dad made sacrifices for you.  We went to New York. We worked some crazy jobs  for you  to live the life that you're living now and get the opportunities that you've given. If you put your mindset to it, and if you could create that resilience inside of you, you could accomplish and do anything. And when I got that letter back, it really allowed me to put things in perspective.  And it was probably one of the best wake up calls that I've ever gotten in my life.

29:05
I graduated bootcamp as one of the top squad leaders. So it just really changed different things and taught me how to apply myself in different scenarios as well. I graduated bootcamp. I went off to Marine Combat Training  and Marine Combat Training, we call it MCT, and it's kind of preparing you or a simulation of what war would be like. So I learned what it was like to actually be in the military and learn from the experiences, getting to meet family members of

29:33
previous members that either served from like World War II, the Vietnam War, talking to their family members. And it really showed me what I was getting into because I really  didn't have the knowledge around the Marine Corps or the military besides what I was taught in boot camp and from what a recruiter taught me at the time. The last day while I was there, we're hiking back  and I'm from Jamaica and I'm from Miami. It is negative five  degrees.

30:02
I've never seen snow a day  in  my life. We're hiking back 10 miles  and I've never seen this before, but it started snowing and it was like raining at the same time while we're hiking back. And I got hypothermia. I got frostbite. Next thing I know, like halfway throughout this hike, I wake up, I'm in the emergency room.  And I'm saying to myself, man, I can't catch a break.  I can't catch a break.

30:32
My training gets shut down in regards to starting my next training and going actually to learn my MOS. eventually gets picked up  and I get assigned to second tracks in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.  And I'm there training and learning how to do my job and things are going great.  I'm understanding what it's like to like get up in the morning, do your routines, go to the rifle ranges, go to the do your gas mask training. And at the time I'm a young, young Marine. So I'm learning from senior.

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Marines that has already been doing this for years and years and years over.  And this is when things started leading up to some of the things that transpired in my life. September  11th, I'm there on the base  and I finished training that morning  and I'm driving, getting ready to go down to the ramp, getting ready to go to work. My mom calls me panicking,  screaming, are you okay? Are you okay?

31:29
Are you going to war? Are you going to war? I'm like,  what are you talking about? I think everybody can remember where they're at, what was going on  during 9 11.  And I tell her, I don't know what you're talking about. I just finished exercising. I'm just getting ready to go down to work. I go down to work  and everybody's watching TV and we're just watching replays of these airplanes crashing into the tower. Some people are crying. People are getting phone calls.

31:59
The bass gets shuts down. hear sirens going off.  And  my mom called me because, you know, this is what she feared. When I first had that initial conversation with her, like, I don't want you to go to war. And immediately everyone thought we was going to war. Shortly after that, President Bush declares war. I go to Japan for one year. I come back from Japan and I go to Camp Elton, California, and I'm out there in Camp Elton, California. I'm now with third tracks.

32:28
And Captain Venning comes up to us and tells us, boys, it's our turn to invade Fallujah. We start training and preparing.  And my mindset was,  I've never been to war before. I've never been to combat before. I've been through some tough things in my life. I've experienced a lot of tough things, but this is a different level. This is a different challenge. This is something new that's potentially about to be unlocked. And as I'm getting ready to go through this,  something kicks in and I would say it's.

32:56
maybe a precautionary level of fear. But I said, I need to disconnect from everything. I need us to go back into the compartmentalized mode. I break up with my girlfriend. I  cut off my car payments. I get rid of my car.  I got rid of everything.  Because I'm thinking that I could potentially not make it back home. I tell my mom and dad that I love them. And shortly after that, relief from Cali to Seattle, from Seattle to Canada, from Canada to Germany, from Germany to Kuwait.

33:25
And we're there in Kuwait for about close to two and a half weeks preparing training. And something I found that was very unique about myself as I continued to grow and evolve was I have the ability to connect with people because I've never been someone to like sugarcoat things. So I'm really transparent. very honest with people. So I got a chance to like note every single person that was in my platoon, every 64 personnel that was going into battle with me. I knew their mom.

33:53
I knew their dad, I knew where they went to school. I knew what made them tick, what pissed them off, you name it. I knew every single thing about them as it was important for me to have a sense of duty, a sense of mission, a sense of purpose to make sure I take care of every single person that was going to be within my charge. We go on a 320 mile convoy into Fallujah, Iraq. We get into Fallujah. We get off our vehicles, we park them.

34:19
and we're mustering and we're getting a debrief from Captain Venning. And all of a sudden I hear, Boom, boom, boom! We all scatter, seeking cover. No one got injured. But this was one of the first times in my life that you had that parkering moment and I was like, holy S, this S is real. And...

34:47
I've always talked about like putting things in perspective, but like this was one of those moments in my life where you got to keep your head on a swivel. You got to be ready for anything. We've trained, we've prepared, but you never know  what is going to happen as things are very, very unpredictable and it could be unexpected. From there, man, we're there for close to 11 months  while we're there in Iraq. The first mission that we go on, we're there on the highway and it's  my track.

35:16
We have my gunny's track. have two other tracks providing security to the infantry guys that's actually inside of Fallujah shooting and fighting. Nothing happens throughout the day while it's daylight. Night comes.  There's no streetlights. It's just dark. You just have NVGs looking through anything that's about to happen. Shortly after that at midnight.

35:44
RPGs are getting shot over my head. You could feel the heat from the RPG shooting over you. And it's just landing behind me. Immediately, we traverse our vehicles and we just start shooting and leveled everything that was inside of that building. If it was people, if it was kids, if it was babies, if it was husband, it was wives, whoever was inside of it, they were gone. We get back to the fob.

36:11
And me and my gunnery sergeant is talking about it.  And he was just saying to me, man, I appreciate you just having my back and responding the way you did. You didn't hesitate. You didn't question anything. You just responded. And I've always felt that it's imperative for me to perform and take care of the people that is there with me. But I believe also the training is so ingrained in us to instinctively respond and do something.

36:41
in those moments. And I realized that when you have these type of muscle memories in regards to those tough things happening to you, you respond immediately. I told him the same thing too. I told him, thank you for having my back and just making sure that I got out of there alive because we could have easily died. Those missiles just right over our head. There was  directly next to us. Those guys are just bad shots. Shortly after that, he gets injured. He gets injured and our section is 12.

37:11
tracks and we're broken down into three sections. So I'm in first section. We have other senior people in second section and third section.  And after he gets injured, I'm thinking that they would move one of these guys that has already been to combat their senior people to put them in first section. But no, Sergeant Allison, you're going to lead first section.  And I'm the one that's talking to our colonels,  our generals.

37:39
I'm the one that's talking to our drones, the eye in the sky  for all of our missions, all of our patrols for the next six to seven months.  And at 22 years old, this responsibility is now on me. And this is why I say, I wonder why I've been through so many tough things in my life to given this opportunity to deal with something as tough as this. That's why I say, why was I uniquely put in this situation or circumstance? Shortly after that, man, we go out  on

38:08
Quite a few different patrols, quite a few different missions.  And  this is when I realized while I was sitting there for those two weeks in Kuwait, when I got a chance to know the guys that work with me, it allowed me to become a better leader because I knew  how to serve them and how to empower them, how to inspire them, how to motivate them, because not every single day is going to be a great day. But now I was put into this situation where I had to lead these guys.  And it taught me a whole lot about myself.

38:38
The last mission that we're on, we're there. And I had a friend named Salto, kid from Wisconsin. We connected because I was supposed go to Wisconsin. He's from the Caribbean's too as well.  And the previous day  we go out  and we have the Iraqi soldiers with us. And while we're there providing security again, we get attacked. We get attacked  and we find out where they're coming from. We talk to the eye in the sky.

39:07
And we captured them. I'll be honest with you, we captured them and we beat the hell out of them. We put them in the back of our tanks and we beat the hell out of them. We turned them in. We come back out the next day to link back up with our unit. And they're set up in a 360 perimeter and we're coming back with ammunition, water, and MREs.  And we're going counterclockwise.  Lo is my driver, Castanelli is my assistant, and we're just passing out the supplies.

39:34
We get to the last vehicle. The last vehicle is a Hummer. And on this Hummer  is my gunnery sergeant, our doctor, and the passenger side. Hernandez is in the turret. And then we have my best friend, Solto, in the driver's seat. I pull off, and  after giving them all their supplies,  five seconds,  five seconds from pulling off, you hear the loudest bomb and loudest explosion. The bomb tilts my track, slams it back down.

40:03
The shrapnel from the car bomb gashes me above the eye, injures my shoulder. You can see the gas here and then  knocks me down inside of my tank. Castanelli comes up and starts grabbing me, sir, analysis and sir analysis and wakes me back up. Benning gives us the clear. We get out. I see nothing but dust,  smoke, fire. You could smell all this stuff in atmosphere as the smell of that was very consistent while you were there. You got used to it. My gunnery sergeant is blown away from this vehicle.

40:34
and you see just blood running out of his ears. Hernandez, half of his face is blown off. The doctor, his right leg is blown off. And Salto, his entire insides of his stomach is on the steering wheel.  And I have to put Salto in a body bag. Everybody's doing first aid.

40:54
We leave there as they had to detonate the area to blow every single thing up so they don't get access to the things that we have or things that we're leaving. And they start firing at us, they start shooting at us, so now we're in a shootout trying to save our lives. We get back to the FOB  and  I've  never seen  anything like this, obviously, in my life where guys are just crying, guys are just breaking down  and not really knowing how to deal with it.

41:24
And it was one of the toughest times in my life just going through this as it's happening so fast and you can't process this. can't, you don't have a moment to think about all the things that just took place over the past 10 months. But this was the last mission that we were on getting ready to go back home, back to America. We were already given the date that, hey, we're going back to America in a couple of weeks. And this took place.

41:51
And these guys are not going to get to go back home with us. All of their dreams, all of their hopes,  their families that they would have created died on that day, on September 13, 2004. And Matt,  man,  it chokes me every single time I tell the story, man. It rocks me every single time.  And  it changed my life. Because  one of the deeper parts of the story, Matt, is I had a lot of things that played in my head after that time.

42:20
I tell you the previous story when we captured those guys, we went back through that same location. Our vehicles have numbers on them, so you can identify our vehicles with numbers or who's on it, as you can see our faces, all these different things as we're going through these communities. So they saw us, the same people. I could have been identified or my vehicle could have been identified. I really don't know that. But at that time, that story played in my head. As I'm there delivering  and giving these guys their supplies,

42:50
These guys was hit by a VBID, which is a vehicle-borne improvised device, which is a 500 pound car bomb was inside of this person's car. They drove up, I passed this vehicle. They drove up and drive directly into this AAV to kill Salto and injured these guys.  The story that played in my head over and over was why I didn't see this. How did I miss this?  And it played in my head with a loss of grief, lots of guilt.

43:20
lots of shame that was tied to the feelings and the emotions and the replays that went over inside of my head. Because you're trying to make sense of it. I was trying to make sense of this my entire life. I got out of the military and never got helped, never talked about it for close to over 10 years of my life when I got out of the Marine Corps, man. And you were probably thinking about it every day. Every single day. Yeah, that's a lot. I mean, I'm sorry that you had to go through that. think, I mean,

43:49
your life is spotted with events like this and then having something like this is incomparable. And I can understand as a survivor of that how much you might want to make sense of it or try to figure out what could I have done or survivor's guilt that comes along. Did you have any of that as well? Absolutely. man. Absolutely. And you had no tools, like emotional tools, right?

44:19
ever  provided anything through your life because you had pushed things down and put them in little boxes. So you weren't even like, how do I handle this? Like how,  what is rational? What is irrational? What?  There's a whole  mess there. And you did that for 10 years. You played around in your head with that. I did. This is how things came full circle. So

44:46
Unfortunately, when you transition out of the military, know, the military does a good job of training you and teaching you how to do what they want you to do when you're in. Nothing, nothing against their mission and their purpose while you're in. What I will say, there is a gap when you do get out. There's nothing I've found up to this day in 2025 that is concrete, that truly, truly helps veteran transition out of the military to be as smooth as possible.

45:15
When I got out, I walked out with all of those stories, all of those memories, never addressed them, never dealt with them. And I was trying to get employment and trying to figure out life. You know, when you're in the military, you're tied to an identity, you're tied to the uniform, you're tied to the purpose, you're purpose driven. And when you get out and there's none of those things, what's next? You're trying to figure that out. I was unemployed for close to two months. I got a job working on a railroad.

45:45
And when I got a job working on the railroad, I realized that if I was to tell anyone or share with anyone my combat experiences, because there was a very big stigma around 2007 and probably other times too as well, where you want to talk about shell shock or PTSD or you're crazy, you're probably going to have run a good chance of not getting employed. So I bought all those things, suppressed those things, compartmentalized those things and never addressed it or dealt with it until  I'm there on the railroad.

46:15
And I'm a train master. So I'm responsible for over 200 miles of territory all the way from Valdosta, Georgia to Atlanta, Georgia on the east side and the west side. So it's up and down with two train lines that I'm managing. In addition to that, I have close over 250 employees that I'm supervising on any given moment  as it's an on the call job. So there's different employees getting called to run the trains at that particular time. And we have local crews that service our local customers, our BMWs.

46:45
our Ecolabs, you name it. So  I get a call from the dispatcher in the middle of the night and I say, hey, Mr. Allison, we have a suicide here in Stockbridge, Georgia. I tell my wife I got to go. I show up and I see a body cut in half. I get my crew off the train. The news reporters comes up. The coroners are there.  People asking me questions. And this immediately brought me back to my friend.

47:16
And as soon as that brought me back to my friend, I said I needed to get help. I try to work shortly after that and I found myself just starting to have all these flashbacks and these nightmares. So I'm starting to sweat in my sleep now. I'm sitting at my house and I'm hearing of like bullets whizzing by my ears and going over me. I'm starting to  fall asleep at the steering wheel or people is just saying, hey, something is wrong. I go check myself into the emergency room and try to get help.

47:45
at the VA hospital. I go see  a psychiatrist and a counselor and someone sits there trying to intake me and they pull up this book with a whole bunch of alphabets and is just asking me a whole bunch of questions. And I really like,  asked me like, what is going on? What are you dealing with? And this was my first  encounter with trying to get help for mental health. And I immediately checked out and I said, this ain't for me.  This ain't working.

48:15
I don't know what the hell this is. And I say this as this is someone that has been through all those things that I shared with me as a kid. This is someone that shared all those things that occurred to me in the military. And this is my first encounter of sharing anything that has ever took place in my life. And the person sat behind a book and was not trying to get to know me. And I checked out. I went back to my work and told my supervisor what's going on. trying to get help.

48:45
If you know anything about the railroad, the railroad's biggest number one priority is safety. And at that time, mental health was a safety issue. I got put on FMLA. I got a severance package in the mail and I was unemployed for the next two years.  Wow. Yeah, I mean, that  unfortunately that happens too often. People are ready. People are ready to seek out some kind of help. And then  where they go is

49:14
going by the book or asking the checklist of questions and they're not treating you as a person because  the one thing you need in that moment is a sense of safety, that you are in a safe place, that you can tell your story and what you're dealing with. if you don't feel it, then why do it? What's the point? Right? I feel like so many people have been in that circumstance. Unfortunately, what I've learned is that over time, that you

49:43
the first person you go to is probably not going to be the person that you  connect with, right? Like it took me like five people to find the therapist that could help me with my breakthrough.  Did you have a similar journey? Like, did you try again? In the midst of that moment of going through those things, me and my previous wife was going through a custody battle. So for three years,  me and her is in court trying to decide who gets our kid, who spends time with our kid. So for three years, I'm on Southwest Airlines.

50:14
I'm in a hotel, I'm in a rental car, or I'm in a courtroom trying to fight to get custody of my son. Throughout that process,  I went to my supervisor and I said, hey, you know, I'm having a very tough time and I'm trying to spend time with my son. What's the closest you could get me back to Miami, Florida? They get me to Tampa, Florida. As I'm going through that same process and dealing with that, the young lady that I was dating from Georgia, she moves to  Washington, D.C. with me.

50:44
And we've known each other for a very long time. I proposed to her, we get married, and after six months of being married, we're in a blended family situation. And I'm going through a very tough time with her. I'm going through this custody battle. We'll get into a nasty fight right around New Year's. I'm having very short patience, very short tolerance for a lot of things. I filed for divorce. I end up in Tampa, Florida. While I'm there in Tampa, Florida, I said, let me try this mental health thing again. So I go get...

51:13
see a psychiatrist. I get passed through multiple different psychiatrists  and at a particular point I was on 13 different medications. On 13 different medications you forget who the hell you are. You lose yourself. My brain became so foggy, so confused, I couldn't wake up, I couldn't function, and I couldn't work anymore. And one day I said, I don't see the point.

51:42
I'm the kid that been through all these things.  This is what happened to me for high school football. This is my experience  with the grief and the guilt of what took place with my friend. I'm no longer a good dad, not a good husband. I don't see the point of being here anymore. I got my weapon. I went to that bridge there in Tampa, Florida. I tied 50 pounds of dumbbell weights to my leg and I was going to take my life.  And right before that, I wrote the letter.

52:11
of how  my life has been, what's been going on, and no point of being here. And this is when my life shifted. The letter that I wrote my mom talked about what I was going through in boot camp.  And the memory of what she wrote me back instantly kicked in. Instantly, when I was writing this letter and reading that letter and looking at that letter, instantly that moment kicked back in for me.

52:40
And it was one of the most sobering moments in my life. I'm somebody of faith and belief and it just started resonating as in like, this is not how your life is supposed to end. This is not how it's going to go. In addition to that, something came over me, man, overwhelming, just came over me. Like, how dare you try to take your life? You lost all those guys in Iraq. You could have easily died in Iraq. You got through so many things in life.

53:09
How dare you end it like this? And in that moment, man, my whole life shifted,  my perspective changed,  and it's been on the up ever since then, why I'm here now talking to you, share my life story and everything that has taken place since then, man, has been a wonderful, wonderful blessing, man. You know, it's really  understandable, which is not the word I think a lot of people would choose to use, but it's understandable how you got to that

53:38
point because  it wasn't for lack of trying. It's like you tried to do so many things right in your life, right? And things just kept smacking you across the face or  circumstances were taken away from you or you were put in situations in which you were doing your best, but things happened still. So it's understandable how you got to that point and there was no help for you. I'm sorry that you got to that point, but I'm

54:07
more grateful that you were able to find that light within yourself. said, was it writing that? Was it writing your letter? it, or that caused you to remember the other things? Or what was like the? That was it. So it was writing that letter. That's what I saying. It was so sobering as I was writing that letter. man. Putting it on paper. You know, since I wrote that letter in boot camp, I've never wrote a letter since then. Really?

54:35
I've never wrote a letter since then. As you know, in today's time nobody writes letters.  I wrote a letter,  the last time I wrote a letter was  in 1999. And the next time I wrote a letter was in 2014. Yeah. That's it.  There is something,  and I don't know if you felt this way or that's what triggered it, but there's something about getting  the thoughts out of our head and  onto paper or out loud.

55:05
that makes them a little less messy  or, you know, and so I can imagine  that you're imagining this is how it's going to end. These are the things you're going to do.  And then when you have the action of trying to put that out, it's like, no, I can't do this. This doesn't make sense. Is that kind of the feeling that you had? Exactly. That's exactly it. As I'm there writing,  it's...

55:35
One of the things that  I always talk about is  identifying, clarifying, and verifying.  And  as I identified what was taking place, I had to start clarifying what was taking place. And then the verifying aspect was seeing what was truth and what was a lie. And then lots of the things that I was telling myself was a lie.  And I would put things around the circumstances, kind of like how you mentioned it.

56:03
you could really fall into that and start believing some of these things. And I got into that. But putting it down on paper,  you really started looking at things  from a different standpoint. Could I have control of some of these things? Could I have prevented some of these things? Could I have stopped some of these things? Some of these things I could not have done anything, absolutely nothing about. I mean, you couldn't have done things about a lot of the things that you've experienced. A lot of them were way out of your control. Exactly. But.

56:31
And then I think the hard part here is that when you  opted to try to do something to help yourself, you were met with resistance  from the people that weren't supposed to resist you. Like the mental health or the doctor, you know, it sucks. You're exactly right. When you try to get the help that you're needing  and you're putting yourself in a vulnerable space and coming from where I'm from,

57:00
There's a couple of things there. Like as a man, that's not something that we typically do. As a kid from Jamaica that has been with things that has been ingrained in your mind in regards to like being tough  and suck it up or the Marine Corps tells you to suck it up. There's no room for pity parties here. There's no room for bitching, moaning, complaining or any of those things. know, so like for you to put yourself in a position and say, hey, I need help  is a very tough thing to do.

57:30
Yeah, and it's so tough and then you do it and then  nobody helps in the way that you need it.  or, you know, and it's just, it's met with this, this, it makes it even harder because you're like, this shouldn't be,  this part should be the easier part, right? Like the other part's really hard.  And then the medication and going on those and sometimes we think that that's gonna solve things, but you make a great point is that sometimes it's too much and then we...

57:56
just end up pushing, like everything just kind of gets pushed to the side and it's not like you're  dealing with anything. So  as  hard as that last moment was for you before you had kind of this awakening, if you will, to this newer version of you, as hard as it is, it's totally understandable. But I'm glad that you had the awareness and the ability to put it out there and then, and make that realization. Because  the way your face changed when you talked about the after,

58:26
and how your life has been since, you can see  that you feel wildly different than you did before that moment. Most definitely, man. I'm so glad that that moment,  in a way of realizing and having that self-awareness, having that emotional intelligence that my life could change right here in this moment. And having that awareness  and being able to trust that, believe that,

58:56
and actually execute on that and being here to talk to you about it and looking at what has transpired. Wow. Wow, man. From that moment, I got back on the phone and I spoke to my wife  and I just started like pouring out into her and just telling her all the things that took place  and  the new version of what Michael Allison is going to be, a 2.0 version, so to speak. From there, man, I went to Rush University.

59:25
And they had this thing where they could work with veterans  and start unpacking PTSD, traumatic brain injury, NLP, all of these things around your brain that I never really understood, never really understand. And I just started nerding out  and just like deep diving into  all of these things  as they were occurring to me. And why was I dealing with so many of the other things? In addition to that, I went to veteran.

59:53
hospital in Emory in Atlanta. went back to Atlanta  and they were working with me and teaching me around prolonged exposure.  And what was tied to prolonged exposure for myself is that last part of my time in Iraq has, I overplayed that story, that scenario. I'm  going to tell you close to 70 to 80 % of my life ever since that moment. Makes sense. There wasn't...

01:00:22
The days are few and far in between where that grief, that guilt was not attached to who I was. It affected how I responded, how I worked, how I communicated, how I deal with people, how I trust people, compounded with my past experiences, how I interacted with people. And we went through that exercise around prolonged exposure to really help me debunk some of the things that was tied to that. Then my wife, she was always telling me that, you know,

01:00:52
You're fighting in your sleep, you're sweating, you're doing all of these things. you know, my wife  did not really know me as a Marine, did not know me. She just knew I was a veteran. So she didn't know my experiences.  So she was just getting the second half of what my life was like. And my childhood, she didn't really know some of those things as well. And I started sharing some of those things with her. And she said, let me find you.

01:01:21
a counselor that's going to help you. And to this day, the best counselor that I ever worked with was Dr. Judith. And she's there actually in Tampa, Florida, but we met her in Georgia. And when I worked with this lady, no books. She already knew the books in her head. So she didn't need the books. And we went back all the way to Jamaica. And we worked through this stuff  all the way through. In addition to that, man,

01:01:52
I said, you know, I wanted to put my family back together. So, me and my wife committed on how we're to work on our relationship. And we spent the last three years of what it's like to truly be married to the person that you really want to be with. We got married three years ago. The same woman that I divorced got remarried three years ago. The last thing that I did was I wanted to be around a group of men, group of guys that's going to...

01:02:21
love me, support me, be around me, be a brotherhood.  And I joined this group.  I attend a church called Journey Church and we have this program called the Freedom Program. And the Freedom Program is  kind of like helping you free yourself, gain freedom of all of these things that you've been tied to yourself mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, all these things and how to break free from that. And I went through this program  and went through the program.

01:02:50
and met some great, amazing guys. And now we're friends now to this day. And from there, man, this is when I said, this has been one of the most rewarding and best experiences on the back half, or I wouldn't say back half, but the last 10, 15 years of my life,  of some of the things that has transpired for me, man. My life has completely changed. And just looking at where I came from, man, it's been an absolute blessing, been an absolute joy.

01:03:20
And it changed my life, man. From there, I got into I left working for corporate America and I got into business. I bought a franchise, started running a construction company. And while I was running the company, I felt like this was not my calling. This was not what I was asked to do. I'm there in the gym working out one day and all of sudden it came over me. This is not what you're supposed to do. I called the franchise owner, tell him, sell in the franchise.

01:03:48
And  he was pissed.  And after selling the franchise, man, I said, let me write my book. I wrote my book. My friend, Steve Valber, helps me write the book and put it out in 90 days. From there, I get asked to do a TED talk. From a TED talk, I get asked to go to different companies, organizations, tell my story, help people, help kids, help schools, help teams. From there, I said, let me get better at speaking so I can get better at what I'm doing. I get into keynote speaking, get into coaching, get into consulting.

01:04:17
And my life and my career has shaped me to who I am now today, man. It's been an absolute, absolute great ride, roller coaster ride, but been an absolute blessing while going through that moment as well, too, Yeah, it's hard sometimes to look back at all the tough things that we go through and see the good things that can come from them. And like, if I didn't go through that, then I wouldn't be here. it's a weird space to be. But it seems like you're on this side of your journey. You're really

01:04:47
you're taking your experiences, your life, and you're helping others with it instead of just being  in it yourself. I think for a while you were kind of marinating in your own life  instead  of sharing it  and allowing others to feel seen or less alone in those experiences. So  good on you for taking a moment like that, having that epiphany moment and then running with it to like,

01:05:16
No, I can control what comes next. I can make this life that maybe I can't even dream of right now, but I can continue running towards something better. So good on you for that. Absolutely, man. What you mentioned earlier, I call that in a fog  and I felt like a carousel. Like as you're in the airport in your life, you're just going around servos  and things just keep up  every now and then  different suitcases, different things just.

01:05:44
different things you're just unpacking. it just, I had to break that cycle, man. What if, what if this version,  2025 version of you could go back to,  to the Michael that had just come back from Iraq? Is there anything you would want to tell him about this journey he was about to go on? There's a couple of things I would do that this version of Michael would, would do. The first thing is  get the help that you needed immediately.

01:06:13
And  when I say get the help, I disconnected from everything. And what if I was around a community of people that was willing to support me and help me? Where I'm at now today, I know that there's people out there that's willing to cheer for you and be your biggest cheerleader to help get you through some things.  And in that space, I put myself in isolation  and I didn't want any help. I didn't raise my hand to say I needed help.

01:06:43
If I would have did some of those things immediately, I don't know what my life would have been like. Maybe some of those circumstances that I went through, I would have never been through them. Or if I did, I could have handled them better. But I made some bad decisions along the way as those different things that took place or after the divorce. How could I have handled those things? Or getting called for the dispatcher, could I have called somebody else to go? Or how would I have responded if I already was going through counseling and all of those different things at the moment, but I really didn't know how to deal with it. So I would just...

01:07:13
going through it in  that moment. So I think surrounding myself and getting the help that I needed immediately would have been one of the biggest components  as I shut things down and didn't really want to address issues at that time because I didn't know how to deal with those things. Yeah, you didn't have the tools and that's okay. Yeah, I would say that find your people that can help support you and don't keep it all inside. think it becomes toxic,  everything.

01:07:41
for all of us, you if we keep things inside for too long,  that we can pretty much be certain that there's someone else out there in the world that's experienced something similar that can relate to something we've  been through. Even your most traumatic of  experiences, there are other men and women out there that have unfortunately witnessed something just as horrific, right? When I set out to go and tell my life story,

01:08:06
I never knew what the impact was going to be, but when I left that franchise, I invested $150,000 in that franchise. So  I walked away from  something that I truly invested in, but  I didn't feel that that's where I was being called to actually lead and actually live out my purpose and live out my dream. I've always come to the point of like having a life of  not looking back  and saying I didn't do what I wanted to do in life and having regrets.

01:08:36
And man, I have no regrets, no regrets. Well, that's  for the experiences that you've gone through. That's impressive. So  I'm glad that you're at this point in your life that you're able to look back and see how they've all kind of formed you.  If people want to like connect with you, learn more about you,  read your books, like what's the best  way to find you or get in your circle?

01:09:00
Most definitely, Matt. So my website is www.michaelwallison.com. You'll find all of my social media links there, which is I am Michael W. Allison. And you'll find my two books, Overcoming Adversity, Getting Your Life Back on Track, and my new book, Break the Bottle 2, as well. Awesome. Yeah. Well, I highly recommend anyone listening to this. If something about Michael's story resonates with you, please reach out to him, whether he wants you to or not.  I think that's always a good thing to hear how other, you know, someone's story might affect you.

01:09:28
And also, I'd love to ask if there's someone in your life that maybe listens to this conversation and might need to hear it, maybe share it with them. That would be so great. And I will say thank you for being a part of the LifeShift podcast and sharing your story in this way. was like, I don't know how one person does it all, but  you've  found a way to  bring purpose  to your own life, but also to help other people with it. So thank you for being a part of this. Matt, it's been an absolute pleasure to be here with you, man. Thank you for having me.

01:09:59
Well, I am very grateful that you chose to do this, and I will say goodbye because I never know how to end these episodes. So I'm just going to say goodbye and I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Thanks again, Michael. Thank you. I appreciate it.

01:10:24
For more information, please visit  www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com.